


they could care less (as long as someone'll bleed)

by Ford_Ye_Fiji



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, BAMF Number Five | The Boy, BC YOU CANT STOP ME, Bc as you all know that is all I write, But In A Different Way This Time, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, HE GETS YET ANOTHER HUG, Hurt Number Five | The Boy, I have no concept of what this should be rated, Number Five | The Boy Gets A Hug, Number Five | The Boy Has Issues, Number Five | The Boy Needs A Hug, Number Five | The Boy has a mental breakdown, Number Five | The Boy is Feral, Protective Number Five | The Boy, all the sibs eventually show up but the focus is those three, can you guess who this is about?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:01:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25953355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ford_Ye_Fiji/pseuds/Ford_Ye_Fiji
Summary: Number Five is cornered once again by commission agents, but this time with his family.-Diego and Klaus learn something about their littlest-oldest brother.
Comments: 72
Kudos: 1213
Collections: Umbrella Academy Fics





	they could care less (as long as someone'll bleed)

**Author's Note:**

> Idk this is set sometime in a fictional season 3 where the sparrow academy either never happened or is resolved and Ben is alive because I don’t care, I said so.

"What do we do?"

Five grimaced, bitter and angry, fingers red and slick from where he'd been pressing them over Diego's wound, "Any ghosts around that you can use, Klaus?"

Klaus laughed, bitter and scared and utterly humorless, "No. Of  _course_ there aren’t."

Five cursed and Diego winced, fingers shaking as blood bubbled from his wound in a seemingly endless flow, "We don't have much time. And who knows where the girls are." 

Five looked around, eyes wide and wild, breath hitching with desperation as he wracked his brain for a solution. They were cornered, Diego was wounded and out of knives, Klaus was still up at least, but without a reliable means to protect himself. Allison, Vanya, Ben, and Luther were somewhere else in the complex and he could only hope that they were doing better than them.

They only had moments before the rogue commission agents found them hiding here and for some reason, they had picked the single room in the entire fucking place without any weapons to hide in.

_Great_ tactical thinking, Number Five. 

Five pushed himself to his feet, feeling his bruised and possibly cracked ribs protest loudly at his movements. He told them to shut up. These agents were here for him. This was  _his_ fault, and it was his duty to fix it.

The floor creaked outside the room, shadows shifting in the light under the door.

Five froze.

Klaus held his breath, hissing quietly with hysterical warning, " _Five-!_ ”

The door flew open, a commission agent with the familiar red gas mask and gun in hand. Five lunged, grappling the gun and shoving upwards as bullets sprayed into the ceiling, the barrel burning hotter than all the fires of apocalypse in his hand. Five spit out a loud, " _Fuck-!"_ and instinctively let go, his hand smarting. The agent turned and Five ducked under the gun and jumped out of existence.

He reappeared clinging to his back, pulling desperately at his neck, but he couldn’t get a good grip, his hands too slick from his brother's blood and still spasming from the burn of the gun barrel- he had mere  seconds before the agent realized Diego and Klaus were there and  _terrifyingly vulnerable_ in the corner-

Five did the only thing he could think of- he clawed at the agent, hooking his trembling fingers under the lip of the gas mask and tearing it off. The man cursed, dropping the gun and grappling at his shoulders, nails raking across his cheek, narrowly missing his eye, "You little  _shit!_ "

Five ducked under the hands and instinctively lunged, biting down on the man's neck. Warm blood and a frantic heartbeat pulsed under curled lips and sharp teeth as the enemy gave a horrified scream. He held on tighter, digging deeper, a writhing mass of sensations- teeth sinking in and blood splurting as he snarled, almost animalistic- a rabid frothing ferocity- nails digging into the softness of skin- and then Five, bracing himself on the man's back and shoulders, pulled his head back and  _tore_ , ripping out the man's jugular with only sheer determination, willpower, and his teeth. The man  _howled_ . Blood sprayed and Five let go, falling off of the man's back and stumbling back into the wall as he spat the wad of flesh out of his mouth, spitting and hacking.

The enemy gurgled, clawing at his neck, his blood rapidly smearing the floor and Five's shoes. He slumped to the ground, eyes wide with terror as he stared up at Five, standing over him, painted by the gore of his insides and grinning at him savagely from behind a lather of crimson with a predator's bloodstained teeth.

The man died on the floor like that, his blood and flesh in a child's teeth, gasping out the very short remainder of his life on the floor.

Five wiped his mouth, smearing the blood across his cheek. He hated resorting to such measures. He hated it and loved it. Hated it because he was a foul creature, drenched in the blood of others, a mere weapon only to be pointed at enemies and fired- because the sight of blood and organs didn’t phase him in the slightest anymore. He loved it because he'd been so _helpless_ in the apocalypse. Helpless to save his family and helpless to save the world, but doing  _this,_ made him feel in control again. This was something he _could_ do, this was something he was  _good_ at. And he had never _wanted_ to be good at it, but damn, if it hadn't help save his family so _many_ times. 

He leaned his head back and breathed.

The room was quiet except for the soft sucking of desperate gasps of the man on the floor and then nothing.

Diego gaped, breaking the silence, " _Holy fucking shit_ _._ "

Klaus blinked, as if he couldn’t believe what had happened.

Five shook himself and then bent down to pick up the gun, examining it carefully before turning to his brothers, seemingly satisfied that it was undamaged, "There. Weapons. We don’t have much time before more get here. I guarantee they heard the gun shots."

He kicked the side of the still twitching body and peered out of the doorway.

Klaus stuttered, "F- Five, holy shit! You just ripped out a man's throat with- with just your teeth!"

Five turned, snarling, the twist of shame and guilt at what he’d done pulsing in his chest- but he refused to feel guilty for  _saving his brother's life_ \- even if he’d killed in a manner he’d swore never to do again, "And so has everyone else. Fighting isn’t elegant.  _War_ isn’t elegant. It’s  _slaughter_ , Klaus. It’s a butcher's yard. You, of all people, know that." He shook his head, scrubbing a hand through his hair, grimacing at the wetness that was undoubtedly innards he felt there, "Get used to it."

He reloaded the gun calmly, his hands remaining still and confident, not one shudder after what he’d just done, "I'd do it all again and worse to save your life, now can we move the fuck on?"

Five lowered the gun and peered out the door and then back at them, "Help him up Klaus, we need to get a move on."

Klaus swallowed and pulled Diego up, his brother wincing as the movement pulled at his thigh, "I think it hit an artery."

Five cursed, looking back as they made their way down the hall at a painfully slow pace, "Shit. Of course it did. Just how my day is going." 

A man turned the corner abruptly at the junction up ahead and Five felled him in a spray of bullets. He cautiously looked around the corner before signaling the all clear. Klaus and Diego hobbled over as he started rifling through the man's pockets, retrieving a hand gun from his side.

Diego eyed Five's blood spattered face and clothes, his slick-scarlet fingers slipping over the gun with a practiced ease, the hands of an experienced killer and also of a child. Diego frowned, "I don’t get it. Why'd you do that?"

Five stared at him, irritated, "What?"

He turned to look down the corridor again, mentally trying to remember the layout of the complex. Diego grimaced as Five wiped a drop of blood from his chin, his collar thoroughly soaked ( _another academy uniform ruined_ ).

"Why’d you... why'd you do something like that?"

Five turned, understanding dawning and with it annoyance, "Are we seriously doing this right now?" He nodded towards the right, "C'mon, it’s this way."

They stumbled after Five as he stalked down the corridor, gun at the ready. He was a living weapon and this was his home territory.

Diego continued, swallowing back irrational fear, irritation starting to leak into his words. It didn’t help that his leg hurt and that the blood loss was making him woozy, and, furthermore, that Klaus smelled like shit, "Yes,  _actually_ , we are doing this now, Five. Unless you’ve got places to be?"

"Don’t be a smart ass, Diego, leave that to Klaus. You’re not smart enough for it."

Klaus preened at the compliment, "Ah, danke schöne, Five!"

Five glared, "Not a compliment." He blinked out of sight just as a group of men came out of a door on their left.

Klaus yelped and Diego stumbled, pushing Klaus behind him. Five blinked back behind the men and shot, once, twice, and cursed as the gun clicked empty. The last man whirled to shoot where Five had just been behind him, but he was gone by the time he fired. Five reappeared on his other side and grasped his head, this time with a firm grip, and twisted, snapping the man's neck with a sickening pop.

He dropped to the floor with the rest of his comrades.

Five turned, eyes bright and feral, covered in blood and entrails, teeth sharp, as he hissed, seething with barely constrained  _something_ , "You think I wouldn’t do  _anything_ to save my family?"

His brothers stared at this foreign creature made of war and murder and ferocity, bright pulsing blood and sharp edges and deadly precision, "You think I wouldn’t rip and tear and claw and  _kill_ if it meant that you would  _live?_ Do you think that there is  _anything_ on this earth that could  _stop me_ from saving you?"

He turned, distracted and stepped over the bodies of the men, of his victims, of his enemies below him, " _Shit_ . More are coming."

He vanished, four more men bursting from the doorway, searching for their target and startling backwards as Five was spat out into existence, ripping the gun from the first man's hand before vanishing again. The men turned, one shouting and then bullets sprayed from deeper in the corridor, felling two. The last one shot once, twice and then Five was there in eyesight again in a flash of blue, slamming the barrel up into the soft delicate underside of the man's jaw and firing, the man falling backwards in an explosion of blood and viscera.

Diego noticed movement from the ground. He startled.

Five huffed, pivoting on his foot.

Klaus shouted, "Five, look out!" 

One of the men on the floor, in the tangle of limbs and guts and gore, threw a knife, which imbedded itself in his side. Five stumbled, turned, and stomped on the man's fingers viciously, bones crunching sickeningly under his heel. Five reached down without wincing at the man's garbled scream of pain as he snapped his neck with cold efficiency.

Five pulled out the knife with hardly a wince, facing his brothers again as he stood in the pile of bodies of the men who had challenged him, "I will defy  _every_ rule of logic, every law of  _man_ and  _time_ and  _nature_ if it means that I can save you. Do you understand me, Diego?"

He stalked forward into the doorway, and Klaus gulped as they stepped over the corpses, avoiding unseeing eyes and mouths frozen open forever in a scream of endless terror, agony, and pain- a brutal testimony to their brother's capability.

Five was still talking, cold and hard and angry, "No fucking apocalypse and especially no  _fucking_ commission will take  _my family_ away from me, not after all the horrific deeds I’ve done, not after what I’ve suffered to _save_ you." He laughed bitterly, "And oh, Diego, there is  _so much_ that I have done."

He pushed open a door and yelped as a man fell out of it, for a moment, Diego thought that  _Five_ was there in front of the gun and he was on the floor, sucking in a last desperate breath, and Klaus was gasping with pain as he bled out beside him- and then the world blinked and Five was covered with even more crimson if that was possible, the knife he’d pulled out of his side ( _wait_ _, he hadn’t pulled it out, yes he’d left it in- he must've pulled it out of his side instinctively when the door opened_ ) in the man's guts, the glistening of pink and red intestines spilling and sliding repulsively against the glint of steel and flesh.

Five turned as the body fell, eyes wild and far older and unhinged, desperate and furious and filled with, yes, _fuck_ , that was what it was-  _love_ , "Tearing out a man's throat with all the means I had on hand is the very  _least_ of what I’ve done. I’ve destroyed entire civilizations, flattened whole cities, and started countless wars. Thousands upon _thousands_ of innocent deaths are on my hands."

Five licked his lips, hair mussed, knife in hand, blood coating him like a second skin as he stared down at his brothers with the most ferocious _love_ that Diego had ever felt in his life, "I am  _damned_ to  _hell_ , Diego, but I would do it all again, in  _exactly_ the same way to save your lives and to ensure your survival. You are my fucking  _family_ , Diego. And I will  _never_ stop caring about all of you."

He kicked the limp body out of his way.

Klaus broke the silence as they stumbled down the corridor, "Five... Five, that’s kinda  _fucking_ intense, little man."

Diego snorted, still off balance, his whole world off-kilter, "You can say that again."

Five glowered at them both. But he seemed different now, now that they knew what truly lay behind that childish face and brown eyes. Not only massive intellect, not simply a cold blooded killing machine with bared teeth and venomous insults, not even a child lost long ago and still searching intently for home, but there, at his core, was someone who wouldn’t hesitate to die for them. For every one of them.

They turned a corner and Five smiled, and yes, that was  _joy_ and _love_ as he looked up, lips curving into his usual vicious smile, "There you are. You’re late."

Allison and Luther stood there, fists raised, Ben leaning on Allison- weary but unharmed, Vanya behind them with white glowing eyes. Allison eyed him with concern, somehow not seeming to see Five in the way that Diego did now ( _and how couldn’t they? Didn't they know? Didn’t they see?_ ), "What happened to you?"

Five waved a hand vaguely, "Long story. Diego needs medical attention."

Klaus blurted, Diego intensely grateful that he had spoke up before he was forced too, "Five tore out a man's throat with his face and also he loves us."

Five turned around, brows furrowing with distasteful anger and lips curling up into a sneer, " _Fuck you_ , Klaus."

Diego added, "And he got stabbed with a knife."

Five snarled and lunged, but Luther grabbed him as he kicked out feebly. Diego knew he wasn’t really fighting Luther's grasp. After all, he knew that if Five truly wanted to escape his brother's arms, he was completely capable of taking them down.

Diego smirked at the familiarity and his new knowledge, "Five totally loves us guys."

Five hissed, burning with fury as Luther struggled to hold his brother's tiny writhing body, finally experiencing relief when Five stopped wriggling to spit, "Fuck you too, Diego!" 

Diego cackled, lips curving into a delighted smirk and possibly half delirious from blood loss as he retorted, drunk on power, "You know you love me little man."

Luther finally managed to get a solid grip on his little form, which was of course, when Five decided to warp away.

He was spat back out into existence next to Vanya who caught him as he stumbled, his frenzy dying out from the effort. Vanya eyed her siblings as Ben raised an eyebrow, clearly tired but lips twitching upwards anyway in the echo of an impossibly fond smile, "You guys are just figuring this out now?" 

Five whined, almost petulant, " _Ben_ , don't side with  _them_." 

Vanya smiled softly, the white glow in her eyes dimming to her familiar brown as she brushed a hand through his hair, not caring of the red that now colored her hands as she backed Ben up, "Sorry, Five. But we both know that they’re right."

Five scowled and Diego gaped, continuing to be surprised again and again, wondering how he hadn’t seen it before, "Holy shit! He really loves us!"

Five whirled, storming forward, to poke him in the chest with each word, "No. I  _hate_ you,  _Number Two_ _._ Just like I hate every fucking member of this bitch ass tattletale family!"

Diego grabbed at his blood-slick hands, yanking him into a fervent hug, crushing his tiny body and holding Five close with a fervent desperation as his sibling froze, startled against him, "Of course. I love you too, brother."

Five relaxed for a single moment, slumping and boneless with trust, fingers gently curving around his back in an almost imperceptible acknowledgement and reciprocation.

_I love you too._

No one would believe him later, or at least they all pretended not too for Five's sake, when Diego insisted that Five had hugged him back.

**Author's Note:**

> My tumblr is here: https://ford-ye-fiji.tumblr.com/


End file.
